When The Stereo Doesn’t Matter

One of the most important things about a new vehicle is its stereo – its audio system, to use the more current term. It is important because there’s not much else to hear. More finely, there’s not much else you want to hear – such as the sounds of the world outside. Of the traffic outside.

Most driving today is done windows up and stereo – audio system – on.

There are, however, times when it’s worth turning the audio system off. There are some cars that make their own kind of music. I consider my old muscle car to be a car like that. Years ago – decades ago – I installed a then-very-good stereo, with a cassette deck. This was back in the early ’90s, before CDs and bluetooth. I almost never played it, because I was busy playing with the Trans-Am instead. Why listen to songs when you can hear the secondaries of a Quadrajet open – and the vacuum hiss of the V8 drawing in air through the shaker scoop? Nothing that has been built lately makes that kind of music. There is also the sound of the Super T10 four speed. It is a wonderfully menacing kind of sound; of gears winding up (and down). Modern manuals may have overdrives and other virtues, but they do not make a sound like that.

It occurred to me that there was no good reason to keep a ’90s stereo in a ’70s car – so I removed the Kenwood deck and re-installed the original AM/FM stereo that came with the car. I was foresighted enough to have saved it. Re-installing it was a kind of penance. A ’70s car is not like a modern car, with its universal plugs that easily accept an aftermarket stereo without having to mutilate the wiring harness. I installed an aftermarket stereo in my ’02 Nissan pickup in about 15 minutes, with basic hands tools. It is so easy a caveman could do it (to borrow a line from those hilarious Geico insurance mafia commercials that are never played anymore). This is wonderful because it’s an easy and inexpensive way to bring an older (but still modern) vehicle’s audio system up to par with the present, without the need to buy a new vehicle. My truck’s stereo has bluetooth and it can play Sirius/XM as well as any new car’s factory audio system. I like having the upgraded audio system in my truck because it is a truck and when I drive it, I am driving it for practical reasons. And while it is an admirable truck, it doesn’t make the kind of music that makes you want to turn the audio system off.

The Trans-Am is different. And the reinstallation of the factory AM/FM radio was, too. After 30 years, I’d forgotten how I’d spliced the Kenwood deck into the ’70s wiring harness, so I had to figure that out – after figuring out how to get the old AM/FM stereo back into the dash. If you have never messed with a car from the ’70s (or older) you may not know how huge those old stereos were. Not the visible part you see when they are installed. That part looks (and is) about the same size as the more modern decks that were routinely installed as an upgrade in these cars back in the ’80s and ’90s and early 2000s. It’s the rest of the thing that’s huge. In my car’s case, it took removing the glovebox and some of the AC/heater ductwork to make enough room to shove the original unit back there (and then some finagling to push it forward, such that the part you see – the dials and buttons – protrude through the opening in the dash).

Now it’s back in place – and working, too. The little red light comes on when the signal is – intermittently – in stereo. It is intermittent because many GM cars of the ’70s had their radio antennas embedded in the windshield. This eliminated the ugly antenna mast – at the cost of not receiving much in the way of signal, let alone stereo. The buttons work, too. It is sometimes fun to push them and watch the dial needle – not digital or virtual – move from station to station. If you push the AM button, the dial shifts over to the AM scale. If you push FM, it reverts back. This is a neat trick because it’s not virtual. It’s mechanical.

My car also came with an 8-Track player that was the very height of ’70s audiophilia. It is a separate unit that sits below the AM/FM tuner in a cubby in the center console. The problem – for the moment – is that I do not have a center console. When I converted my car to manual – it was originally equipped with an automatic – I assumed it would be easy to find a manual center console (the hole is different, to accommodate the Hurst shifter). It has not been easy. I am still searching for an original (manual) console and until I find one, the 8-track deck will have to sit forlornly on my bench – with a KISS Destroyer 8-track inserted but silent.

That’s ok. I have other things to listen to in the meanwhile.

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